2005-09-13

Morning Report: September 13, 2005

Brown resigns as head of FEMA.CNN: 'Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown resigned Monday after coming under fire over his qualifications and for what critics call a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina's destruction. President Bush chose David Paulison, the director of FEMA's preparedness division, as interim director, the White House announced.' (CNN)

Rice: Legacy of racism.CNN: 'Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the people who were stranded in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are evidence that race and poverty can still come together "in a very ugly way" in parts of the "Old South." "The United States should want to do something about that," Rice said in an interview Monday with the editorial board of The New York Times. "There are still places that race and poverty are a huge problem in the United States, and we've got to deal with that." ' (CNN)

Batebi on Iranian regime.Free Iran posts an interview by The Scotsman with fugitive Iranian dissident Ahmed Batebi. The college student became an icon of the Iranian resistance when he was photographed holding a friend's bloodied T-shirt; he now lives on the run. Batebi is sharply critical of the European Union's accomodationist stance toward the IRI regime: '"Everyone knows how much the EU's wheelings and dealings with Iran have strengthened the lifeblood of the Mullahs," he says. "The majority of people see the EU as allied to the government of Iran and usually as contradicting in spirit what the US might do. They think that the EU is mainly looking after its short-term economic interests, rather than democracy." ' (The Scotsman via Free Iran)